Homecoming Talk set for August 25th, P3 Ward /Hermana Baeza, I'm planning a WEDDING!

Dear Friends!
I am so excited to announce Hermana Baeza will be coming home on August 21st and will be giving her homecoming talk on August 25th during Sacrament in P3 at 1:00pm!!!!! I will send out reminders as we get closer. In the meantime, NO she is not getting married quit yet, LOL but she would still love to hear from you! No email from Elder Baeza this week :D But he is doing good and would love to hear for you too xoxo
Thank you kindly,
Love Baeza Family

Okay. Don't freak out. Let me explain :)

This week has been so great! However, I'm so glad it's P-day haha I was having major withdrawals on Monday. Lots of stuff has been going on and well...it wasn't fun to have to wait two extra days to get everything done! But, it was so worth it because we went to the TEMPLE today! And guess what? We got to do some sealings! We were all in the celestial room and I overheard (more like the old temple workers were whispering super loud) them talking about how they need people to do sealings. They were looking for a couple since us missionaries can't be the couple but we can be the children :) It was so great! It was wonderful to be reminded of the covenant we made as a family when we were sealed in the Oakland Temple almost 4 years ago!  Thank you for the letters I also received this week (great transition...): Grant, Elder Baeza, Lara (i wrote you a letter back!), Trevor and Paul.

So, the random/funny things of this week:

1. planning a wedding! Well, now 2 :) the elders have investigators that need to be married before they get baptized and lets be honest...they don't have a clue on how to start planning for weddings! so they called us and we are going to plan it all out for the two couples! sister mellor and i are soo stoked about it haha

2. I ate tuna. If you know me...I do NOT like tuna...due to a certain individual that I know (sarah and emily...you know who i'm talking about). I had it twice this week. yuck.

3. yesterday we were praying in the car before we went into a lesson and we have been stressing on finding someone to give a talk for our baptism this Sunday. sister mellor was saying the prayer and she prayed that we would be able to quickly find someone to give the talk. the second she said that, the phone vibrated. we both open our eyes and all i saw was "cristina libhart" and i had a feeling it was her saying yes. sister mellor had the phone on her lap so she read it and then we both just started to giggle. that was the quickest prayer i've ever seen answered in my life! praying + received text = giggles. love it.

4. so we want to get more in shape and we decided that we are going to run sprints in the morning! we started on friday and my gosh, saturday I was DEAD! i was complaining all day on how much my body hurt haha! but now i'm used to it. we get up at 6 every morning and are out the door by 6:15. sister mellor is so intense, i love it!

Okay, so we got the CUTEST notes from Cynthia and Jose last week! I LOVE THOSE CHILDREN! They are just so cute. Their notes was a reminder for me to be the missionary they think I am. They look up to us a ton and can't wait to serve missions one day, even if it is 10 years from now :) But Carmen and Cynthia are officially being baptized this Sunday!! AH!!! I am so happy! They are great. They have changed so much because of their decision to learn more about the restored gospel. It truly has brought happiness in their life. It's going to be a great day. Not looking forward to my talk still but...it'll go good.

GUESS WHAT I FOUND OUT THIS WEEK!!! So I went on exchanges with the Venice sisters again which meant I got to go back to my first area (kind of). The sisters were telling me about Emilio who got baptized last...September. He said that he should be turning in his MISSION PAPERS in JULY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JULY JULY JULY JULY!!!!!!! Exciting right?! Someone that I have helped receive the restored gospel will be getting his mission call ideally while I'm still on my mission! Ha! How cool is that!? He also BAPTIZED their investigator on Sunday!! And a few Sunday's before, he gave the priesthood to one of their other recent converts. That right there is why I went on my mission. Not to just see people be baptized but to see them making goals and plans to go to the temple. Then I heard about Ernie earlier during the week on exchanges as well and apparently he is doing so great! He has been able to do baptism for the dead at the temple. So fun! It makes me smile to think that he has been inside the temple already. He just gets it now. I love it!

Today is President and Sister Baker's last day as our mission president. It's crazy to think that they are actually leaving. We had a special zone meeting with them and they got to share some things with us. It's so easy to tell how much Sister Baker loves President Baker just by the way she talks about him. It's fun to see them bicker in front of us every once in a while but she truly does love him. She told us that President Baker corrects us because he cares more about our future more then whether we like him or not. People think he's a strict person but I know from first hand experience that the times when he needs to correct me is because he loves me. He really does care about our salvation. They told us how the mission will teach us that we CAN do hard things and that no matter what, we will always be "their missionaries". It made me realize that I never want to do anything to ever disappoint them. Even though we are getting a new Mission President tomorrow, I don't ever want to let them down. Something that President Baker told us was that he encourages us to learn what we need to learn from President Weidman, especially for us who only have a short time with him. He promised us that there is a reason why we are still here when we get to have him as our next mission president.

Lastly, was the world-wide broadcast on Sunday not absolutely amazing! One thing I loved about it was that everything we saw in those videos was MEMBERS testifying of what MEMBERS did, not of what missionaries did. The missionaries only assisted them in the work. It reminded me of one of my favorite quotes by Elder Bednar that says, "We properly pray for the safety and success of the full-time missionaries throughout the world. And a common element in many of our prayers is a request that missionaries will be led to individuals and families who are prepared to receive the message of the Restoration. But ultimately it is my responsibility and your responsibility to find people for the missionaries to teach. Missionaries are full-time teachers; you and I are full-time finders. And you and I as lifelong missionaries should not be praying for the full-time missionaries to do our work!" Brothers and Sisters, we cannot do this work alone. We need the members. It is you that will stay in the wards when we leave. It is you that will help them get to the temple by being a friend to them. We obviously have our part as well to keep the trust of those we teach and to always have contact with them but while we're missionaries, we don't have the time to always be there for them. That's when you come in! So please, PLEASE re-evaluate how you do missionary work. Is it something that is a part of your life? If not, I invite you to make goals with your spouse and your family to make it more a part of your life. This work is too great to only have the full-time missionaries be involved. I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week!!!

Love,

Hermana Baeza
1591 E Temple Way
Los Angeles Ca 90024

1. sister merciales and sister cho! sister cho goes home with me next transfer and then sister merciales. we were the three that came in together :) and we match!

also daddy, can you call the provo temple to see if i can work their on either tuesday's or thursdays before 12pm? i have classes at 1pm i believe but those would be my only two days that i could work there during the week. let me know!

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